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We’re there, all het up and it’s finally official: pre-orders are available! The Träumendes Mädchen team will be at the Japan Expo convention in Paris from 2nd to 5th July (booth L52, Hall 6) with a sack full of things. In order to celebrate that, here’s a description of our new products.

The Crossing Horizons sketchbook will be in A5 format and will include around 40 pages shared between all the artists on the team.As you might already notice on this preview, there is a little bit of everything: fanarts from visual novel (japanese or western), illustrations of our own games (abandoned sketches we never showed or new ones drawn for the occasion), sometimes in black and white, sometimes in ful color, digital or traditionnal. In short, a joyful jumble overflowing with passion! If Elairin, Kinect, Melow and Orties are in the spotlight, Morsy and Laniessa also offered a contibution and we’re really happy to count a small Guest Art section as well at the end of the artbook. All to say we put our heart in it and we hope you will enjoy the result!

The new hard copy, named Between Heaven and Hell, will include a compilation of Garden of Oblivion and Wounded by Words.Translation of the original content in French is almost finished so I’ll be able to write the new content for WbW extended version pretty soon (after story for each route and unlockable epilogue)…as well as the secret bonus. We also have two new merchandises: a bookmark and a poster!

Since most of you can’t attend a French convention, we’re experimenting a mail order system to allow you to buy all our goodies ! Nothing more simple than ordering:

_send me an email at traumendesmadchen@gmail.com with « Preorder » as a subject

_add you complete adress so that I can send you everything properly. Be careful though, there will be shipping fee and the farther you live from France, the more expensive it will be (can’t do anything about it sady =/)

_and don’t forget to tell me what you want to buy, of course!

We only accept Paypal payment (same email). And don’t worry about the change, I’ll do that for you and tell you exactly how much it cost (but FYI 1€ = 1,12$).

So that’s it, thanks for the constant support, we wouldn’t be able to do all that without you!

A little more than six months after the dematerialized release of Episode 4, we’re back with the new part of Khzi’s adventures, our favourite nutty alien!

Well, once again, the production has been rather chaotic. I think we can definitively assert that the previous time was an exception and that I’m utterly unable to draw up a believable deadline… There were some changes in the team too with the departure of Jeungo and the arrival of Kinect who’s proving to be quite efficient ! It remains that the waiting time between each release is slowly decreasing (from one year to six months), which is good news for the most hungry readers ;).

A wonderful in-game illustration by @Orties

Khzi and her team hold a series of half-baked plans in order to outwit the priests on their heels. The mercenaries don’t know that the worst is yet to come: a storm is brewing…

Milk ~La légende des étoiles Episode 4 (the link is on the page, as usual) includes many small alterations on sound, illustrations and text, all in hope of making the reading more interesting. I hope it’ll pay. It should also be noted that Episode 5 will be the last part of Khzi’s adventures.

We’re once again open to all feedbacks, negative and positive alike, as long as you help us improving! I invite you to keep following us on Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr to see the progress we’re making on our différent projects. Next goal: Ludum Dare ~

Today, I want to come back to the differents projects the team made in order to comment our progression.

Indeed, even if things are slowly changing with the increase of early access games, one often only get a hold of a game through its finale version, in other words, it’s most complete and most accomplished version. An average player may get under the impression that the differents pieces are coming together thanks to some kind of evolution stone to change into a piece of art. Reality is less glamorous but way more reassuring : creating is something you have to learn. The bad news is that it involves a lot of work, the good news is that anyone can try it out. And the Träumendes Mädchen team is no exception, especially me who has the job of being the “leader”. It’s been almost three years now and I’ve learned so much thanks to my teammates, particularly with programming. So I want to draw up some kind of report.

Back then, the team had already gathered around Milk and we floundered so hard. I was aware we were jumping the gun when we started with a project this big and I really wanted to make up for that with something short. The first version of Being Beauteous was born like that and we planned to make it during some French contest that happened in a small convention. Even if it didn’t looked much, BB hold a special place in my heart because it was our first completed project. It was really simple (text and some CGs) but we did have troubles during the competition because of the GUI. So it’s only with the 2nd version (the first available one actually) that we managed to fix those bugs. Also, we slowly realized that having a translation was really important to share our works to folks around the world.

What I learned : to finish a project, to make a bug-less GUI, to understand the importance of an English translation.

Another draft by Morsy. In the end, those variations never got into the game.

The deliivery of Milk’s 1st Espidode was a real ordeal because it took us like a whole year to see the end of the tunnel. It must be said that there was a lot of content to deal with for such a young team and I immediately understood that we couldn’t go on like that. After all, we were supposed to release the whole game in a row after that! I realized it was impossible and change the plan to an episodic publication. Hence why the demo became “1st episode”. It was also a chance to get to know Renpy a bit better (choosing a custom font, juggle with all the numerous sprites and numerous expressions). Milk’s presentation was really simple and we made a lot of mistakes but I think it was a prerequisite for what came after. Most of the mistakes were corrected (the GUI) or are pending for correction since then (*cough* the scenario). It should be noted that we released the visual novel both in French and English at that time, not without pain.

What I learned : to write a visual novel, to finish a bigger project (without dying), to draw a GUI, to make a siultaneous translation, to manage sprites and expressions.

I think we all understand why Melow did the game illustrations and not me 8)

Once Milk’s Episode was behind us, I had to tackle Nanoreno! It wasn’t a technical challenge (because the story was linear) but it sure was a litterary one. Granted the deadline was a pretty difficult thing to handle too but I planned the game not to need too much assets. But really, my personal challenge was to write a short story that would inlude some kind of memorable ending, something striking. Even thought the result wasn’t perfect, I’m relatively proud of the outcome, I think the intended result is here. Ambre was also a good chance to make progress on GUI and animation. We included some light animation for the first time with the petals on the main scene and we tried something with the leafs on the city background. Some elements you would find again in the next release.

What I learned : to write a visual novel while paying attention to the assets needed, to finish a project quickly, to write a story with a memorable ending, to join an event.

We took almost a year on this one again but it was mostly because of the turn-over inside the team. This second episode was mostly a validation of what we made with the first one. Indeed, many project don’t get past the demo stade, so releasing a new part of the story was a symbolic move. We wanted to show we were still game and that we wouldn’t give up so easily. We took that opportunity to change the GUI (and it was way more difficult than you would imagine!) and include animated backgrounds for the first time. Well, there are only 2 or 3 of them but it was a way to slowly get accustomed to the process.

What I learned : to carry on an under way project, to include animated backgrounds, to renew a team.

Once again, I wanted to tackle Nanoreno, and once again Milk’s production was late. In 2013 we managed to finish two weeks before the beginning of the contest, this time we finished in the middle of it! Under these circumstances, it was rather difficult to deliver. HVNCML was born a whole week after the deadline. I didn’t write any postmortem because the whole game can be considered one (with a comic point of view). Back then, it was our first technical challenge because I only wanted to try my hand at a IRC-line GUI and didn’t have much planned to use it afterwards. Well, you can consider that making some part of your life public was also a challenge. In a way…it is. This little visual novel was supposed to be a funny extra to the fans that were wondering what we were doing everyday and how our meetings looked like. Yet several people who didn’t know us played it too. It was kind of embarrasing, a bit like getting naked in front of strangers. The whole approach does suppose some trust with the audience.

What I learned : to juggle between several projects at the same time, to try an IRC-like GUI, to reveal my stupidity to the world.

Milk’s third episode is really seen as an exception among our works because it’s the only damn game that went “easily”. Meaning that we didn’t enconter any particular issue (except a small false note with the translation that wasn’t immediately ready). If anything could happen like that, visual novel dev would be so easy XD. It’s all the more surprising considering we had a lot of pressure due to the fact we promised this part would be ready for Japan Expo, a French convention. The third episode also marked the spread of backgrounds animation.

What I learned : to meet a non-negotiable deadline, to spread backgrounds animation, to release a game in a relaxed way.

In the same vein as HVNCML, Garden of Oblivion was planned as a technical challenge: I wanted to put tradionnal visual novel aside to include some point & click elements instead. With an incredibly stressful deadline (Nanoreno is a stroll in a park in omparison). If the graphic part was irreproachable, the coding part was rather…wild. The first version we returned didn’t match my expectations at all and we had to add a whole week of work to get to the result with the second version. The other challenge was for me to write directly in English with the bare minimum of preparation to fit the gamejam spirit. And I’m reserved about the final result, I could have done better. At least, I managed to include more diversity among the characters. The fact remains that the community experience was on par! Ludum Dare really is a big gathering of people and that forms bonds. If you wanna know more, read the postmortem I made right after the competition.

What I learned : to write directly in English, to jon a bigger event, to learn programming in the field, to make an hybrid VN/P&C, to discover the joy of polishing, to include a bit more diversity in a cast.

Spring 2015 (?) : 4th Episode of Milk

Orties really likes to write on her drawings…

Milk’s forth episode isn’t out yet but I feel I learned so much already. I think it’s starting from this point that I really felt confortable with RenPy. To the point that I now like to rummage through the script to improve what I can improve. It wouldn’t have happened without slowly getting familiar with the engine, project after project, and the help of Keul. The direct consequence is that this episode is full of small alterations: adjusting the brightness of sprites during night scenes, adjusting the height of non-human sprites, adjusting the font to be more readable, adjusting some transitions to be more dynamic, adjusting sound effect to fit the mood better, light animations on the illustrations. Currently, that’s the work I’m the most proud about and I hope those little things will make the read more interesting, even if they’re not that useful. I also started asking the artists to try different presentation styles (object on top of the background, insert chibi, CG cut in half, CG with many variations).

What I learned : to have a good command of RenPy, to use all my time doing alterations nobody will ever notice, to use sound effects effectively, to experiment different presentations.

April 2015 (?) : Ludum Dare 2

Since the game’s production hasn’t started, for logic reason, here’s a scene from Milk Episode 4.

Since we’re planning to enter Ludum Dare again, this part will mostly be anticipation considering we didn’t even begin the project! My main goal is to break the linearity of all our projects so far. Making choices is quite a complex thing to incorporate into a story and as a litterary person, I have trouble with that and I need to learn to write differently. It’s pretty ambitious considering the short deadline but I’ll try to stick to that goal, even if it means releasing a polished version later on. The other goal is to go out of my comfort zone with writing and talk about what I want to talk in a more…frontal manner. Indeed, many of my works address our relation to the norm and try to challenge that notion but it’s mostly told in a tacit fashion. I want to go further and stop censoring myself so much. In this perspective, I want to stage characters different from usual, under-represented ones. Like disable people. Furthermore, I plan to rest on what I learned with all the projects we made up until this point to make a game that’ll make me proud. We’ll see if we’ll manage.

What I want to learn : to make th most of what I learned so far, to write an actual interactive visual novel with branching, to make diversity an essential component of the cast, to prevent myself from self-censorship, to master Renpy enough to not have a hard time…to make a good game?

Conclusion

I just wanted to share another scene from Milk Episode 4.

This little overview shows that an individual (just like a team) need time to gain self-confidence and skills. Time to make mistakes, time to correct the mistakes, time to get numerous habits, time to be able to experiment and choose what one wants to do and how. I couldn’t imagine planning the Ludum Dare project years ago, I wouldn’t have felt able to! With this approach in mind (though iterations), the advices from the pros take on their full meaning: always try to make short projects before even tackling the “game of your dreams”.

Everyone need its own pace to learn but nobody can make miracles without any experience whatsoever. The issues of some visual novel Kickstarter are really enlightening in this respect: almost all the projects made by beginners (such as the ones who bragged about the campaign being their first visual novel) are currently running into difficulties and are having troubles keeping their promises. Likewise, the Katawa Shoujo spiritual heirs have disappeared and the few survivors are stuck on demo phase.

Moral : Don’t jump the gun, start small. Wait until you feel ready before shifting up a gear, it can only do you good ;).

To begin with, slow down a bit X). I think it isn’t healthy to produce four games a year, not only does it lead to irrealistic expectations, but it also push the teammates to exhaust themselves. We can hardly beat 2014 record in terms of productivity anyway and I don’t want anyone to drown in a coffe’s cup (would be a fitting death but no).

We’re going to stay with basis : our top priority is to finish Milk Episode 4 first. If the work with sprites and chibis is almost done and I’m hoping we’ll be able to finish the CGs real soon (why did I write action scenes again?), I’m worried about the backgrounds. Indeed artists who can handle BGs aren’t legion and we’re missing the colouring phase. Would be galling to get stuck now so I’m hoping luck will smile at us once again ! Episode 4 should be ready in 2015, what remains unknown is when. Will it be at the beginning or at the end of the year…

Aluwo as a bisho (still by Melow)

That being said, I still want to make another short project in the following months. In fact, a specific idea haunts me (writing a story with lots of choices…moral choices) and I really want to make it. So I’m wondering about dragging the whole team with me to enter next Ludum Dare. Needless to say that if we enter a game jam in April, we won’t be doing Nanoreno in March. To be continued…

Some of you may be wondering if we gonna take part in next Japan Expo convention. Well, the answer will depend on you! Since we’re a team of hobbyists, we don’t have a big budget and we’re paying transports/accomodation cost out of our own pocket. We’re enthusiasts and we want to be sure we’re going to make you happy. So I gonna circulate a survey to know if some people are interested in last time hard copies (if we need to reprint some) and if some people are interested in new goodies. Depending on what answers we got (as well as the numbers of answers we got), we’ll be able to see more clearly into it. Of course, most international people won’t be able to attend a French convention, but please do let a comment (here or through social networks) if you’re interested in mail-order. I can’t garantee anything for now but we might be able to open an online store in the future.

Beyond Japan Expo, I think it’s reasonable to make progress with Milk Episode 5. I really hope this part will be available before the end of the year because it’s urgent to finish the common route once and for all. Or else we’ll still be making the rest 10 years from now and that doesn’t sound that tempting to me =(.

Miruku (by Clua *_*)

2015 will be more relaxed…maybe?

To conclude, 2015 should be less hectic than 2014…should be. Because, as I said, we’re not immune to surprises ~ You know me, I can’t stop myself.

Let’s bring 2014 to a close with a little report of everything that happened this year (like what we did last January).

To begin with, we released Episode 2 from Milk ~La légende des étoilesduring mid-March. It was a bit hasty to my taste since we were late in relation to my estimations, and we had to rush through the release to tackle the next task. Which is a shame and I really don’t want the same mistake to recur.

The good news is that with Episode 2, Milk was officially heading towards Khzi’s part that I loved to write and that contrasts a lot with what I wrote for Episode 1. The cows and Tarô aren’t the main characters anymore and just accompany the long story narrated by our nutty alien. I think Khzi has everything to be popular and the various feedbacks I got confirm that impression. Freyja seems to have fans too, I find that amusing XD.

The key element with this release is essentially our transition to the current team (who gained experience during the journey). We still have a big gap between the art assets but we’ll solve the issue in due course. The current style should stay at least for a while even if we’re not immune to something unexpected.
March was also the month of Nanoreno, and I went from Milk to How visual novel changed my life, released in April, without transition. The artists’s work was precisely limited to avoid burnout so the gain was mostly based on text and programmation. Which turned out to be a nightmare… Overwhelmed, I had to infringe upon my on-the-job training schedule in order to finish the script (and integrate the translation, while I’m at it). The whole thing with an even moreunpredictable Keul. I copped it, which may explain why the game was a bit delayed. And I thought it would only be a little gift to please our fans. That’ll teach me to do too many things at the same time =’D.

Since HVNCML was just a small thing without pretention, I didn’t expect much. So, many month later, I’m really surprised to see people discovering us like that, I sure hope they won’t take fright because of what I wrote XD.

Two visual novel in a year is quite decent, except that we never stop. Never. The big project of the year was of course the team going to the Japan Expo convention. I won’t hide hide, it’s tottaly because of the Endless Seasons guys, they have a catching enthusiasm and were looking for people to share their booth with anyway :p. In the end, Projet Saya offered to supervise and we managed to convince Atelier Dreamnoid to join us in this crazy ride. The preparation was huge, no organiser wanted to leave things to chance, so we ask every participant for thei opinion many times in oder to be in the same wavelength. The Träumendes Mädchen team had to finish many things, with the weight of the crowdfunding campaing on our shoulders, like Episode 3 and some goodies. The remakes got added really fast with the success of the first strechgoal. Thanks to our artists, including Orties and Melow who produces most of the drawings between the two of them, everything turned up alright.

In the end, it was an enriching experience. For a first time in the convention world, I think the team did a good enough job and it was a pleasure to meet everyone IRL and spend time with fellow developpers.

Once again, it should have been enough but we had to give ourselves more work =’D. The summer end was a good opportunity to put webdesign under construction. The old devblog wasn’t suitable anymore, we wanted a real “shop front” and not a messy page. If posisble, the site had to be both in English and French for pratical reasons. The result still isn’t perfect but we’re working on it!

Icing on the cake, we tried a new game jam : the Ludum Dare. With an even more challenging goal than Nanoreno and a different community, we were assured we need a lot of coffee and wouldn’t get much sleep. Many difficulties made the experience a bit painful on my side (I must be a masochist XD), the team did finish a game in time. Of course, it couldn’t be a big complex one (don’t forget it was done in a weekend) but Garden of Oblivion, published betwee August and September, was the perfect opportunity to male a real game from scratch. We did rely on what we knew well (visual novel) and the result has the same vibed but we learned a lot.

To conclude,the planning I had in mind for 2014 was loaded and the team used a lot of energy to make it possible. It’s an achievement I’m very proud of and I shouldn’t try to do as much this year if I don’t want my lovely teammates to die of weariness…

I’ll make another post early January to reveal what we’re gonna do in 2015 (a year as surprising as the last one, I hope), so meanwhile I wish you a merry Christmas. Also, here’s a cute Christmas Miruku by Melow ;).

Today, there are various subjects I’d like to talk about, so bear with me for the moment (development updates at the end of the post)!

Rondo Duo and the future of visual novel

I already lightly touched the subject on my personal blog (French only, sorry :<) but I really wanted to talk about Rondo Duo in more details.

As you might know it, Rondo Duo ~Dawn at Fortissimo is a japanese visual novel that’s been released by doujin group Tinkle Bell last Halloween. Plot-wise, it has little to no importance (it’s a nukige, so don’t expect more than lots of H-scene) but from an artistic perspective, it’s very interesting. In fact, Tinkle Bell uses an handmade Flash engine to make everything animated. Whereas rival japanese companies (like Windmill Oasis who introduced it first with Witch Garden back in 2012) primarily uses the « Emote » system as a light gimmick, this new system does reproduce the illusion of movement pretty well. The art is gorgeous and coherent with the animation, and the sound effect really adds a lot too. In short, the cinematics are great.

Seeing the intro scene of Rondo Duo makes you wonder what it’d be like if visual novel with a real plot used cinematics like that. Of course, I’m not speaking of a full-animated visual novel, it would be expensive as hell for indie creators. Tinkle Bell itself took 6 years to finish their game (it was announced back in 2008) and there was like two or three people working in the team during all that time (I don’t think they were working full time on this though). Not bad for a doujin group but you see my point. What I’m really curious to see is a visual novel with ponctual cinematics like that, done only for key scenes. I have the feeling it would add a lot to the experience. I’m sure every visual novel reader had seen moments where static pictures weren’t enough to convey the right emotion (like fight scenes or dramatic scenes).

It’s clearly not within everybody’s range (my team would never be able to do that, for example XD), but maybe the biggest visual novel developpers can try it out. I would be very curious to see that. What’s your opinion? What visual novel do you think could include such cinematics?

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Game dev updates

Nearly a month went by since last time and it only feels like yesterday. Developping visual novel makes you kinda disoriented: since you’re working on the the same things over and over again, you can easily lose track of the time…

Concept art of two new characters by @Laniessa. If you’re nice, you’ll be able to see the finished version soon ;)

We’ve been progressing surely but quite slowly on the next part due to everybody being busy. The truth is that Episode 4 is way bigger than Episode 3, so it’ll take longer to finish it, especially with the number of CGs (there are a lot of action scenes in this one, I’m sure you’ll love it !).

Sketch of the forest background by @Orties

The good thing is that almost all the backgrounds are ready to enter coulouring phase! I hope the work on the sprites (mostly colouring) and the chibis will also be over soon, in order to be able to complete the script. I’m hoping to send it to translators in December, so let’s cross fingers!

Others

Milk put aside, we did work on other things. For example, we released Being Beauteous on Desura in mid-november and we plan on doing the same for Ambre when the time’ll be suitable (read: after the crazy month of December where everybody is broke and most AAA games are published). We’re really proud to be able to make our visual novel more visible to a larger audience, I hope it’ll go on ^^.

Speaking of Being Beauteous, we also realized we never released its new soundtrack. Since Roganis did such a good job, it would be a shame not to share it, right? That’s why the Being Beauteous Soundtrack will be available on Bandcamp next Monday (1st December) on a « Pay what you want » basis (the OST is so short we felt it wouldn’t be fair to ask for a definite amount). You can get it for free or give him a little tip to support his work. I’d be you, I’d definitily give him a few bucks, the guy deserve it ;).

And after the release of the Being Beauteous Soundtrack, Roganis will also publish his new album on Bandcamp. For those who couldn’t get it at the last Japan Expo convention, it’ll be your chance! So, as usual, follow us on social networks to be the first one informed o/.

Six months after the previous one, here’s the newest part of the story. With 100% more alien madness !

If the first two Episodes were finished in a rather chaotic fashion, this one went surprisingly well : artists were all available (which is rare), Orties was as fast as a human being can possibly be (her secret is tea, so it seems) making many assets in a go, and the French version was ready for the convention we attended this summer. So, apart for some remaining bugs and some work on the English translation, there wasn’t much to do after. Also, this Episode is a little bit on the short side because I have to save energy for the big scenes happening in Episode 4, but I can’t say more!

A CG drawn by Orties

In this Episode, Khzi’s mission gets complicated as the High Priest heading the church wants her companions dead or alive! Will she be able to retrieve the meteorite’s fragments while protecting the slave she took in on the way? You’ll find out soon ;).

For the moment, enjoy Milk ~La légende des étoiles. We’ve decided to put the game on Gumroad as well, because it allows us to make updates. So, every time an Episode comes out (every six months, as planned), you’ll receive an email. Pretty cool, hun ?

Khzi being awesome. Or crazy, it’s the same ! (by @Melow)

You can still follow our updates regularly on Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr. Like the game ? Hate it ? Give us your feedback, it will be much appreciated =). And stay tuned because we have something reaaaaaaally cool to tell you later this week !

We’ve been preparing it for some time now, the time has finally come…SHE’s coming back. Oh yes, you know who I’m talking about.

Click on the picture to see the GIF

But, beforehand, some little news ! (I love to make people wait for nothing :3)

As you must know, we released all of our short projects on Gumroad on « Pay what you want » : the graphic remakes of Being Beauteous and Ambre, as well as How visual novels changed my life are all available for free but you can drop a little tip to support future releases ;).

Ludum Dare has ended for some time now, as we have received the ratings of Garden of Oblivion, our entry. For a first time, we didn’t do half bad ! We even got into the Top 100 (at the very end but we made it) ! I’d say it’s a very encouraging sign and we’re gonna considerate entering once more to make another game.

We’re officially gonna release Episode 3 next week. So why would you care ? The story is now 5 hours long, with various improvements (like a better translation for you, English folks!). Which makes like half of the common route and more Khzi’s goodness ! And I know, you like her very much ;). Who wouldn’t like such an inpredictable fellow whose hobby is to make people go crazy just for fun 8D.

Click on the picture to see the GIF

Meanwhile we’re gonna share some extra pictures on social networks to make you want to play our story. So get yourself ready because you’ll finally be able to know what happens after that pirate raid next week !

It’s on starting blocks that the team is delivering to you the latest news before Japan Expo 2014. And, to start off on the right foot, here is our promotional visual !

Goodies

Last time we told you all the orders had been send. In the meantime Projet Saya received the packages and was kind enough to take some pictures to satisfy our curiosity. Here is a sneak peek, I hope you’re drooling as much as we do XD.

The cover for the Short Story Collection’s hard copy

The music album

The bookmarks (don’t mind the ones on the left, they’re from Atelier Dreamnoid, one of the teams we’re sharing the booth with)

Being Beauteous’ posters

Hard copies

After a long month of fierce work, we were finally able to finish the Short Story Collection we promised during the Indiegogo campaign. Therefore we will sell it next to Milk first volume (episodes 1 to 3). Speaking of Milk, we’re deeply sorry to announce we didn’t made it on time for the English translation. If you buy Milk hard copy on our booth, you’ll have access to a patch later (if you want so) to correct that mistake. As for the free wev versions, they still are planned way later this summer, so if you didn’t preorder, you’ll have to be patient ~

Booth activities

In addition to the goodies sales, we really want to make the most of our talented artists. Roganis won’t be able to bring his music instruments as planned, due to technical issues, but our three lovely designers will make drawings on request. Morsy will only be there on Thursday and Sunday, whereas Melow and Orties will be there the entire week. Don’t hesitate to ask them !

Since Projet Saya has a camera, we won’t forget those who can’t go to the convention ! If you follow us on social networks (Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook), you’ll be able to see us clown around live XD.

Japan Expo is coming soon, so let’s give some news about what we’re preparing for this event ! Spoil : a lot of things (as usual).

Goodies

Items have been successfully send to be printed. Among the various stuffs we already showed you, there is one we hadn’t finish at that time. Indeed Morsy couldn’t find the time to do the last bookmark so Orties had to take care of it in her place. Here’s the result, I hope you’ll like it !

The other thing is about the music album. It was intended to allow you to fully appreciate Roganis’ work but we also thought about making it a Milk OST, which wasn’t a good idea given that we haven’t finished the game’s music yet. So, all things considered, Roganis finally made up his mind and produced the following tracklist for The Milky Way of Music !

1 – Shadow of the Moon, Sea of Shadow

2 – Un Matin Rayonnant

3 – Clepsydra

4 – The Dream of a Little Planet

5 – Les Cloches du Couchant

6 – Wind in the Hair

7 – Song of Storm ~Roganis Remix

8 – Crépuscule du soir mystique

9 – Endless Road

10 – Lost Woods ~Roganis Remix

11 – Le carrousel des Rêves

12 – Pluie de Cendres ~Gymnopédie

13 – Nevermore

The music album will have 13 tracks including a good amount from Milk (all episodes mixed up, even those that haven’t been released yet) or Träumendes Mädchen’s games, but also some covers and an original one. The first edition will be printed in very limited numbers and a lot of people already reserved their copies during the crowdfunding campaign, so there won’t be much left. If you’re interested in having one, please do tell, so that we know in case we’ll have to produce some more copies !

Milk Episode 3

Good news : the game is almost finished. We only have some programming to do and Episode 3 will be available for the convention. We took that chance to completely remake the textbox (from the old GUI) and enhance Episode 1 translation that wasn’t on a par with the rest anymore. Yet, having to deal with some withdrawals, we find ourselves very short to finish Episode 3 English translation. We’ll do everything we can in the remaining time but we might not be able to finish it on time for those attending the convention. We’re crossing our fingers !

Short VNs collection

Being Beauteous is currently receiving quite the makeover ! Roganis remade his old tracks and some new ones to enhance the sound experience while we’re doing a brand new GUI inspired by Melow’s poster. We’re also redoing all of the CGs to stick to the new size (1280×720 instead of the old 1024×768) and ofer a more polished experience. Since Morsy didn’t have the time, Orties once again took care of the art and her style is of course very different. We tried to stick to the original spirit and we hope you’ll like the new graphics.

As for Ambre, as promised we’re redoing the translation. We’re trying to enhance some backgrounds as well, as you can see on Melow’s sketch.

However we’re experiencing issued with How visual novel changed my life. We wanted to add some extra scenes but we’re finding ourselves overwhelmed by the workload. Since it’s our more recent game, we’d rather focus on improving the old ones and won’t be able to deliver the extra scenes. We’re deeply sorry for the inconvenience.

Our schedule before Japan Expo is tough but we have a lot of energy to burn and we really want to please all of our fans =).

On a very different subject, the Träumendes Mädchen team is finally getting a real website. The devblog has become inadequate and we want browsing to be easy. Modifications are to be expected soon, we’re keeping you informed !